Greatness is Like a Rubbish Hole: Social Frictions and Global Connections in the Early-Swahili World

Abstract

This essay examines the tensions and uncertainties that developed out of the Swahili coast's interactions with the premodern Indian Ocean world. While mostanalyses of this period focus on East Africa's emerging cosmopolitanism—such as the formation of Islamic port cities—scholars have generally overlooked Swahili speakers' struggles over the social, religious, and economic changes brought by early moments of maritime connectivity. Employing evidence from historical linguistics, this essay shows that from the late-first millennium, Swahili speakers developed new ideas about patronage and status. They also created a lexical repertoire that expressed their apprehensions about rapid changes in social and economic life, including vocabulary to gossip with and abuse leaders and fellow town residents. Using this language evidence, this essay illuminates the frictions that Swahili speakers faced in their early encounters within Indian Ocean networks to demonstrate both the opportunities and the challenges born out of global interconnections.